


Miguel Did Not Ask Me Out On A Date

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Confused!Stiles, CoolGay!Danny, Goddess!Lydia, M/M, Monosyllabic!Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 21:35:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1362520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny shrugs again, keeping an eye on Stiles in case he flips out. “Whatever you say. But take my advice—don’t date your cousin, sexual tornado guy. It’s creepy and seriously wrong.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miguel Did Not Ask Me Out On A Date

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a SERIES so read the first few before this one so you don't miss anything. :D

So, school happens.

Despite his Hannah Montana double life, where instead of singing in concerts and wearing wigs and generally just being an awesome tween popstar, he gets to fight supernatural creatures with a werewolf pack, a genius, and a fledgling hunter by his side, school is still very much a thing that Stiles is partaking in because he has to or his dad will kill him. 

It gives Stiles a chance to think things over under normal, everyday circumstances. He actually spends every waking moment of school just thinking, unconsciously ignoring anyone else he comes across. He takes fifteen minutes to pee, thinking about the pyromancer and how the others could have dealt with the body, as he washes his hands with cheap school hand soap. He savors every bite of lunch with a stray thought to mull over, like, what the pyromancer could have possibly gotten from burning buildings to the ground, or why a teenage boy like him is setting aside an unhealthy amount of time ruminating on flame creature motivations. He stares inside his locker for fifteen minutes more than necessary, just contemplating the facts of life as it stands, and wondering, with a lost expression, why? Why did Derek look like that? Fuck. Shit.

Derek Hale isn’t supposed to be capable of a soft expression. He’s a lurker, a creature of the night with an affinity for leather jackets of the most fitting and alluring kind. He’s a badass. He eats nails for breakfast, if the permanent scowl is anything to go by. He growls first and asks questions later.

Last night, Stiles couldn’t wash away the image of Derek from his head, making him toss and turn in bed and tangle in the sheets in frustration. In his mind, Derek is lying prone and vulnerable, his singed back exposed, and Derek’s looking at him in that strange way. It was in constant loop in his head, reminding him over and over that Derek Hale’s mouth had turned down without malice, his eyes softer than imaginable, his face more open than he’s seen it. That he had looked like that, looked at him, at Stiles with something that is definitely worry etched in his face.

Stiles doesn’t know if he should find some sort of privilege in being the first among Derek’s peers to see a look like that, or if it means his early demise for experiencing it. Or something.

But Nippon Mania? Seriously? What the hell is Derek’s deal, suggesting a Japanese restaurant out of nowhere? And it’s not even the fastfood, easy, take-away establishment that Stiles only takes ten minutes to visit. It’s an actual menus and waiters restaurant.

Stiles is very confused. Nippon Mania, 7:30 on Friday. Maybe there’s a special promo there that Derek wants him to check out, like he’s sending him out on an errand to go look, then come back and tell him. Probably a rice-all-you-can night the minute 7:30 strikes. Does Derek even like rice? He looks like a protein kind of guy. Maybe it’s code. It could probably be code for something, like, Japanese samurais attacking on Friday night, be prepared, tell Scott. But that wouldn’t make sense, Derek didn’t need to be cryptic to give that information out.

In AP World History, he happens to sit next to Danny Mahealani, who is looking quite bored, now that Jackson’s been spending more time with the pack. Plagued with a million different questions, Stiles decides to ask some of them, because Danny has humored him before, and he has never been disappointed in whatever it is Danny thinks.

“Hey Danny,” he says, leaning precariously against his arm chair. “Hey, I have a question.”

Danny looks at him and leans away with a dubious expression. “What is it?”

Stiles looks back at him with a withering look, reading the apprehension perfectly.

“My question does not involve any sexual parts, or anything there is to do with gay mating habits. Swear to Alex Trebek.”

Danny eyes him warily, but sighs in resignation and nods. “Fine. Go ahead. It’ll kill time faster.”

“Great! So,” Stiles starts, but then stops shortly, eyebrows knitting together. What did he want to ask Danny Mahealani, the hottest gay dude in school, with an impressive track record and an underage pass to gay clubs everywhere?

“So?” Danny prompts, raising an eyebrow.

“So, ok. Here goes. No, wait, it’s not so much as a question as it is a quandary, you know what I mean?”

At Danny’s blank stare, Stiles shakes his head.

“Whatever. I’ll set up the situation. So there’s this guy, called grumpy eyebrows scowling guy. Grumpy eyebrows scowling guy is lying on his stomach on a mattress, his back burned, because of … a blow torch accident. He was … making crème brulees. Anyway, so, standing next to him beside the bed is awesome, sexual tornado guy, who indirectly caused the injury, and is genuinely regretful and sorry for it. He asks grumpy eyebrows scowling guy if he could do anything to make up for it, and grumpy eyebrows scowling guy says back,” Stiles straightens up and lowers his voice like Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Nippon Mania, 7:30 on Friday. What is that supposed to mean?”

Stiles blinks expectantly, wishing desperately that he hadn’t created too incredulous a story—well, not really created because it really, honestly happened. 

Danny stares at him like he’s insane. “Is this some kind of awkward young adult novel?”

Stiles frowns. “What? No, it’s a thought-up hypothetical situation. Wait—why? Does it sound like a one? Like, like a John Green one?” he says the last bit with some cringing.

Danny shakes his head, but his lips do quirk a little bit at the sides. “Not really. Not when it’s two guys romantically involved.”

Stiles eyes blow wide open. “Wait, no, what—romantically? Romantically? Dude. I don’t see where growliness and pathetic displays of apology count towards romance. There was no romantic element in there whatsoever. Sexual, yes, because there was exposed skin and a lot of eyebrows. But—romantic? No way. No.”

Danny shrugs. “Well I’m assuming that grumpy eyebrows scowling guy just asked this so-called sexual tornado guy on a date.”

Stiles’ mouth falls open, like, embarrassingly wide.

Something dawns on Danny’s face and he twists around to face Stiles fully. “Hold on, that was an uncanny description—does this grumpy eyebrows scowling guy happen to be your cousin, Miguel? Because that is seriously creepy and wrong, if he asked you out on a date when he’s your cousin.”

“My cousin did not ask me out on a date!” Stiles almost shouts, pulling himself back mid-sentence when he noticed everyone’s heads snapping towards him. He’s pretty sure he’s earned a couple of major creeper points for that. Great, like he needed more reasons to stay friendless.

“He didn’t,” he hisses at Danny, because he didn’t. “It must be some sort of stake-out thing. Like something shady is happening at that restaurant and Der—Miguel needs backup or something,” Stiles says, sounding very much like he’s trying to convince himself more than Danny.

Danny shrugs again, keeping an eye on Stiles in case he flips out. “Whatever you say. But take my advice—don’t date your cousin, sexual tornado guy. It’s creepy and seriously wrong.”

***

“The purple one. Definitely the purple one. Brings out your eyes,” Stiles says with a hint of pride at his choice. Lydia looks back and forth between a purple ruffle dress and a red-and-white pleated skirt and sleeveless blouse ensemble, before hanging the dress back in her mega-huge closet and smiling at her choice appreciatively. Stiles gapes at her in surprise.

“I thought you wanted me here for fashion advice,” Stiles says indignantly. It’s Wednesday and Stiles has nothing better to do, and he makes the mistake of saying this out loud during lunch period in school—because honest to God when does he not blurt out any statement accidentally—which prompts Lydia to take him for the afternoon. Stiles had been excited about this, because, hello, Lydia Martin’s bedroom, but then it’s a rather emasculating thought when she only wants a verdict on your choice of clothes like you’re a Tim Gunn disciple. But now Lydia has proven his purpose is for the complete opposite—he’s more of Tim Gunn’s pizza guy, and it kinda makes him sad.

Lydia looks at him patronizingly. “Honey, your fashion sense is so deplorable, that I trust you so much to pick the wrong things for me.”

Stiles frowns. “I resent that. My clothes are awesome. The mere fact that they don’t have blood-stained holes in them already makes me a better dresser then the pack.”

Lydia shakes her head in a no-contest kind of manner. “Stiles. Plaid will only ever be for lumberjacks and Canadians. And besides, you can pull off any outfit you want, just so long as you have a werewolf bite and a tragic past.”

“Even leather apparel?”

“Especially leather apparel.”

Stiles pouts. “Stupid werewolf genetics,” he huffs, then grins suddenly. “Hey, so, if that’s the general rule, then you should try the purple dress out! See if you pull it off.”

Lydia flips her hair around her shoulder, hangs the ensemble near her vanity mirror and looks back at Stiles. “I don’t have to. I already know I’m flawless.”

Stiles opens his mouth like he’s about to challenge that statement, but Lydia raises her eyebrow at him as if to say, ‘I dare you to say fucking otherwise’ and Stiles shuts his mouth. Lydia smiles in a satisfied manner and sits in front of her mirror, preening as she applies some makeup. Stiles stares, because Lydia is the queen of all things amazeballs, and she is gifting Stiles with the privilege of staring at her while she prepares for a night out.

“So night out, huh? With Jackson, I take it,” Stiles says, flipping through a book on thermodynamics that shouldn’t be in a sixteen year old girl’s room, one knee vibrating as he does so. His tone is the same tone one uses when talking about the dead and dying. His eyes looking around the room, and the page-turning thing’s just for his hands to have something to do.

Lydia glances at him for a second, and then reverts back to painting herself. “It’s a double date, or something. Boyd and Erica are going.”

“That’s … nice. Funny how everyone seems to be paired up with someone else,” Stiles says, and he barely manages to take away the tightness in his voice, because, ok, he might be feeling envious about not having someone to hang out with, like, in a kissy couple-y kind of way.

“Tough luck,” Lydia says, and it’s like she really means it, except her unapologetic grin says otherwise. “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you ask someone out on a date?”

It was just a suggestion, but it sparks a recent memory that Stiles has been avoiding. Stiles closes off and shuts the book, looking out the window and sighing.

“How do I even do that without making a complete ass of myself? Like, if I say a place and time, you know, just casually, with a look that definitely suggests a possibility of there being some feelings in tow, is that enough to ask someone on a date?”

Try as he might to make it sound like he’s the active player in this hypothetical scenario, Lydia stops mid-swipe of a brush and turns to him, stares, and squints a bit. “Just barely. If you’re close to this person, have a long-standing relationship of being agreeable with each other and understand each other enough to not misread any of their non-verbal habits, then it’s definitely enough. Now, say, you barely know this person, and you don’t know where the hell he or she is coming from, then there’s going to have to be an explanation. Because things can’t be vague and confusing like that.”

Stiles is looking at her like she’s the second coming of Christ. Lydia does not understand why and just basks in it. Stiles for his part is visibly resonating with Lydia’s words, because that’s exactly what he thinks, except he doesn’t know which category Derek fits into.

“Can I ask you, on a date, then?” Stiles asks hopefully, though that’s just about as futile as squirrel eating off a bird feeder.

Lydia doesn’t stop this time, only points at the far side of the room to a side drawer by the door.

“There’s an application form in the drawer,” she says, making her winged eyeliner sharp enough to end misogyny.

She isn’t joking. Stiles tries to fill it out but falls horribly short of Lydia’s standards.

***

When that familiar feeling that says ‘homework now, or you’ll fail life’ tugs somewhere near his navel, he turns off the television and then runs to the kitchen to grab some bag of chips from a hidden nook specifically designed for that very purpose, and a can of Mountain Dew from the fridge.

He stops under the doorway of his bedroom when he sees Derek, looking for all the world like an night intruder, raiding one of his drawers where he keeps his shirts.

He stands there awkwardly as Derek soundlessly shuffles in place, picking out shirts, trying to see if they fit by holding out in front of him, then hastily refolding them and stuffing them back into the drawer. Stiles waits for around ten seconds before making a sound.

“Dude,” Stiles sighs, and Derek visibly stiffens. Stiles chuckles a bit.

“So you’re totally easy to ambush when you’re in the middle of rifling through my clothes,” Stiles points out. “I should take note of that.”

Derek turns to him and, you guessed it, glares his way through a conversation.

Stiles makes his way over to his desktop and puts down the junk food equivalent of ambrosia and panacea on his desk, all casual about it, because he’s already been conditioned to receive the hadron collider of all laser glares. “Look, you could have asked me. I was literally just downstairs and my dad isn’t around. Why do you always go out of your way to make everything a felony?”

Derek creates this sound in his chest that sounds like a microwave, which calls Stiles attention.

“Stiles,” Derek grits. “Shirt.”

The caveman speak that Derek employs for odd but specific situations prompts Stiles to investigate, and his eyes widen when he sees it. Because of the dark swatch of Derek’s shirt and the dim lighting of the room, he only sees now the massive scratch mark that’s caked in dark blood.

“Dude!” he cries. “For fuck’s sake, why didn’t you tell me?”

Stiles is on his feet already, and surprises the both of them when he comes at a very close proximity. He tries not to think about it, instead focusing on the deep gashes left on Derek’s side. Very deep, in fact, that they’re taking a long time to heal.

“Jesus, you have got to work on your communication skills,” Stiles breathes, examining the injury, silently contemplating whether first-aid counts as first-aid on werewolves. “Why are you so calm about this?”

“I’m not,” Derek confesses in a growly sort of way. “I didn’t know where to go.”

“So you went here? To panic? You come here to panic? This is you panicking?” Stiles fires, knowing fully well that his words are unnecessary right now, but Derek seems utterly quiet about it, so he doesn’t stop chattering.

“If I stitch this up real quick, would it heal faster? Wait, can I even physically pierce your skin, with my wimpy muscles and shaky hands? What the hell got you anyway, these look like cougar claws—no, wait, not cougars like, forty-something moms. You know what I mean.”

“Stiles,” Derek says, and Stiles looks up and meets Derek’s eyes. “Shirt.”

“Right, yeah. I”ll just … get to that,” Stiles says, scrambling to his feet and going to the drawers. “You were going through, um , some of the tighter shirts I have. You know, the ones I only ever wear to parties and stuff.”

Derek says nothing, and instead glares a hole into the very drawer containing the oppressive party Stiles outfits, while Stiles rummages through his own clothes, thinking of the many other things that litter his life because he’s not supposed to overthink Derek being in his room, asking for a shirt.

“Derek, what does it mean, Nippon Mania?” Stiles blurts out, and the room drops from an airplane like a fucking nuclear bomb.

“Shit, I didn’t mean to open that. I meant to ask about the mythological beast that tried to fell you,” Stiles hastily says, twiddling the shirt he’d found around her fingers. He refuses to look at Derek because he's fucking everything up with each word he vomits.

Derek stares at him hard, and then squares his shoulders. “It was some kind of Cerberus. I saw it breathe fire.”

“Of course,” Stiles mutters. “Almost anything breathes fire these days.”

“And it’s a restaurant. Japanese. I thought you knew,” Derek continues.

“Oh, ok,” Stiles says all casual, though his heart is going a mile a minute and he has to pee because his blood’s being filtered at an alarming rate. “So is that Cerberus going to be a problem?” he asks, to get things back on the professional Creature Hunting Club two-person meeting they decided to have.

Derek raises an eyebrow at him, unreadable, and busies himself with peeling the crusted blood from his healing skin. “It’s dead. Boyd took it down. But we don’t know where it came from.”

Stiles nods distractedly, wondering for once why he’s not as spastic as usual. Was he becoming self-aware? Was that all it took? Ten years of random hand flailing and all he had to do was acknowledge it when it doesn’t occur? Stiles’ brain wants to overload, and the only thing keeping him focused is Nippon Mania.

“Wait, no. You know what I mean. Why are you telling me about this so-called Nippon Mania? Is there going to be a stakeout? Are the rest of the pack invited, like, to a sushi fest? Do we get to catch a bunch of would-be dissenters who have surprising storybook powers?”

Derek’s eyebrows knit together like they’re saying ‘what?’ but he crosses his arms and looks one percent less hostile and thirty percent more brooding.

“What do you think?” Derek asks, in a low, self-possessed voice. To be honest, it’s like Stiles is being interrogated for a murder.

Stiles doesn’t know what to answer, except deep down he does, because Danny and Lydia are his gurus and have set him on the path towards enlightenment, or as close to a breakthrough that doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol.

“I …” Stiles says, struck dumb by the intimidating thought of having to fess up what he’s gathered to Derek Hale, a two-time murder suspect, person of interest, and unofficial felon, and at the same time, an Alpha to a crazy but loveable werewolf pack and six-feet four of muscle and grumpiness. “I think that it’s a sort of … thank you dinner. For helping with the pyromancer.”

He backs out at the last second because he can’t just jump into it without knowledge of what Derek thinks. Like Lydia said, things needed ironing, the table needs clearing, or whatever other idiom suggests making confusing things less confusing.

Derek looks down at the floor for a bit, huffs, then takes the shirt from Stiles’ hands. Stiles places his hands by his sides in fear of poking his own eye out with any of his fingers.

Stiles maybe sees Derek try to pass a long sniff of his shirt as a slow intake of breath, but doesn’t comment on it. The shirt must give off a strong, fragrant detergent smell or something. Derek slips into the shirt anyway, which fits perfectly around him, and heads for the window, making Stiles frown all of a sudden. 

“Whoa, hey, off to fight more bad guys, Batman?” Stiles asks, stepping forward and flinching back just as quick, doing a stupid sort of dance move that losers like him like to call the ‘expectations vs reality’ dance.

“7:30. Don’t be late,” Derek grunts over his shoulder, his face scowling in a different sort of way, and then slips out into the night, like he still has a few more blocks to panty raid.

The tension keeping Stiles’ spine straight and his shoulders tugged back gushes out of him with the long suffering sigh he breathes out. He dives onto his bed in frustration, and punches the pillow his face is squished into a couple of times.


End file.
